Saying Saskatchewan's northwest needs freight train service, communities around Meadow Lake are rallying around a plan to save their rail line.

Rural municipalities and towns near Meadow Lake have formed a company, North Central Rail, that's selling shares to other communities that want to keep the trains running.

Last fall, the Carlton Trail Railway, owned by OmniTRAX Inc., announced it would be decommissioning the rail line, tearing up the track that links Meadow Lake to Prince Albert.

That's about 320 kilometres of line running through 12 communities.

It was bad news for Meadow Lake's struggling forest industry, which used the rail line to transport its product. The local group started negotiating with the company to purchase the rail line.

"The railway is a way of shipping bulk product out of an area affordably, and we want to protect that for our region," said Rae Assailly, a spokesman for the 55 West Enterprise Region, a regional development agency.

So far, only towns and rural municipalities can buy shares in the company, but eventually, the equity may be opened up to the general public, officials said.

The potential cost of buying the railway hasn't been made public.